August is National Make a Will Month, making it a good time to review your estate plan. But before you put your will back in the drawer, take a few minutes to review your TSP beneficiary designation as well.
Many federal employees…
Completing your retirement paperwork may only take a few hours, but the decisions behind it deserve much more time. A little preparation before you file can help you avoid mistakes that are difficult, and sometimes impossible, to correct later.
Here are five…
For many federal employees, retirement becomes the focus years before it actually happens. They count down the months until they reach their Minimum Retirement Age, hit 20 or 30 years of service, or qualify for an immediate pension.
Reaching that milestone is…
Many federal employees think about retirement one benefit at a time. They know they'll receive a FERS pension. They have a balance in the Thrift Savings Plan. They have an estimate of their future Social Security benefit.
What often doesn't happen until…
Your TSP is built for saving. Eventually, though, the IRS expects you to start taking money back out.
Those mandatory withdrawals are called Required Minimum Distributions, or RMDs. If you have a traditional TSP balance and are approaching retirement age, understanding when…
The federal retirement backlog moved in the right direction again in April, offering some relief after the surge of applications that hit earlier this year. Even so, thousands of claims remain in the pipeline and processing times still vary dramatically depending on…
There is a benefit sitting in your leave balance that most federal employees never fully account for when planning their retirement. Every hour of unused sick leave you carry into retirement has the potential to increase your monthly pension, sometimes by more…
After months of steady growth, the federal retirement backlog finally moved in the right direction in March.
The Office of Personnel Management (OPM) received 14,759 new retirement claims, including 8,830 digital and 5,929 paper submissions. That is a sharp drop from February’s…
Most federal employees focus on how much they’ve saved for retirement. Far fewer consider how market performance unfolds after they begin withdrawals, and that distinction can have a lasting impact.
Sequence of returns risk is the danger that poor market performance early…
Whether you’re one of the growing numbers federal retirees or getting close, the annual Cost-of-Living Adjustment is worth keeping an eye on. The COLA helps your annuity keep pace with inflation, and while the official 2027 figure won't be announced until mid-October,…